Well, I never noticed that before

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Of all the time I’ve spent in various parts of the World War Memorial Building, I don’t recall ever taking notice of this interesting feature tucked up in near the ceiling over the edge of the basketball court. I don’t know if there were seats on both the north and south ends of the gymnasium, but they’re only on the north side now. I was sitting with one of my little boys having some lunch when I noticed this little box up in the rafters. The “KFYR” sign in the windows gives its purpose away.

The narrow wooden walkway to this booth remains intact, but whatever stairway or ladder provided access to the walkway is long gone. I imagine it’s been a long time since anyone ever called a game from this press box, but it’s probably more hassle than it’s worth to try to dismantle it and take it down. As a result it remains up above the gymnasium, just in case someone ever needs to get a birds-eye view of the haps down on the basketball floor.

Wayne Sanstead’s DPI folks training to coerce your children’s view of sexuality

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Yes, that’s right: they’re at it again. The last time Wayne Sanstead’s staff at DPI tried to get away with this, parents and others spoke out and got it cancelled. It was only six months ago, but they’re back.

According to the NDEA website, DPI is going to be presenting at an NDEA “Own the Change” conference this week (where have we heard that word “Change” so often before?) at Century High School. Its keynote speaker, Jo Anderson Jr., “has a background in community organizing” and spent time in Illinois (as did our president) “working particularly on efforts of the union” before landing a cushy gig as an Advisor to the Secretary of Education.

Well…Hope™ and Change™ come to North Dakota public schools! That’s no surprise given the NDEA’s involvement; however, DPI’s is even more perverse:

Sandy Tibke, one of Sanstead’s own staff, is going to be training teachers on normalizing “LGBTQ” behavior among our children. By the way, notice they’ve added the “Q” for “questioning”. That means if your child gets confused about sexuality issues, guess who’s ready to do the advocating counseling? Not you, I’d bet. Notice, by the way, how they keep adding letters to the acronym as they attempt to normalize additional deviant sexual behaviors. How long until they add a second B for Bestiality, or who knows what else? Maybe Ms. Tibke has the answer.

We’d like to think that North Dakota is resistant of all this Hope™ and Change™ – but Wayne Sanstead’s DPI is persistent in trying to fly it under our collective radar. Here’s my post from the last time they tried to sneak this garbage into our schools. The groups they affiliate themselves with are the same cadre of twisted freaks who got busted teaching “fisting” and “rimming” to school children in Massachusetts in 2009.

How do you suppose you “start creating a safe school environment” for deviant sexual behavior? Easy: tell the other kids that their parents are hateful bigots, their religion and faith are wrong, and that the perverts are the normal ones. Undermine parental authority and the free exercise of faith and religion guaranteed by the First Amendment, and squelch any opposition to the advance of the queer agenda in our school system. Intimidate the kids and the parents with threats of “discrimination” and “gender bias” and you’re free to do whatever you want!

The only ones dealing with children’s sexuality should be their parents – but that’s apparently not the way DPI sees it. I hope this comes out in future elections, by the way. Homosexual advocates tell us to “stay out of our bedrooms” but they’re hell-bent on getting into our childrens’ classrooms!

THANK YOU to Janne Myrdal of Concerned Women for America for posting this on the Say Anything Blog. As she points out, you can call the DPI at 701-328-2260 or e-mail wsanstead@nd.gov to urge them to abort this “training” and keep the homosexual agenda out of North Dakota’s public education system.

Oh yes…here’s where I back it up. Here are the PDFs from the NDEA:

Program for the “Own the Change” conference (PDF)

NDEA website describing the event (PDF)

Hot Air has a disturbing look at where this sort of thing is headed: “Do safe schools require an iron fisting?”

Colorful confluence

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I celebrated the weekend by hiking up to the blockhouses at Fort Lincoln with a friend and our cameras. We took off at 6am and got there just before the sunrise, which was a case of perfect timing. While the sky was perfectly clear upon departure, clouds filled most of the sky by the time of our arrival at the top of the hill.

As the color began to fill the sky, we began exploring all the angles to get the best view of the remaining sliver of clear sky as well as those photogenic old forts. As the different elements of sunlight, color, photography, and friendship began to converge, we got some really cool shots from a variety of locations. Then, as quickly as it came, the dramatic effects of the sunrise left behind the advancing clouds and it was time to hike back to the truck and head home.

Kid’s Day at the Mandan Fire Department

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This week my little boys and I were able to take a field trip to learn more about the firefighters who keep our cities safe. The Mandan Fire Department (with other local agencies) hosted a Kids’ Night with plenty for all to see! Bismarck Fire Department, ND Highway Patrol, Metro Area Ambulance and others helped out to provide an evening of fun, education, and hot dogs. The boys got little plastic fire helmets to bring home as well as some safety activity books to do with Mommy and Daddy.

Among the activities we took in were use of fire extinguishers on a real fire, using a real fire hose to hit targets, watching a Jaws of Life extrication demo, and of course the fire truck rides!

If this event looks cool and right now you’re saying, “Why didn’t I know anything about this?” don’t despair; it’s a regular event, scheduled for the second Tuesday in October every year. Mark your calendar for next year!

This year’s Greg

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We always have plenty of bunnies on our property due to the abundance of habitat for them to hide and play in…this year is no different. Each year I find one particular bunny that stands out and dub him Greg, after the FOX television show Greg the Bunny. I loved that short-lived show and so, in an homage to its puppet star, I employ the name each year by assigning it to one of our family’s cohabitants.

Photo walk results

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Well, the gang all met up last weekend for the Bismarck-Mandan portion of the Worldwide Photo Walk, and a grand time was had by all I talked to. Followed up by a brief gathering at Mocha & More, the walk consisted of meeting at the historic Depot and then wandering around on foot for two hours. Here’s an eclectic mix of the things I found that morning:

I found this really neat antique stroller in front of a little antique shop on Main Street. I applied a little bit of a vintage treatment to the photo.

This aging cross sits atop a church near downtown, I think a Presbyterian congregation if I remember correctly.

The aforementioned antique shop had a stack of picture frames outside on the sidewalk, so I grabbed one and took a quick photo of the Mandan Depot.

I call this one “Rural Amalgamation” – only in a small midwestern state will you find the American flag, a pristine John Deere tractor, and a mystical wall painting all in the same spot.

I found this really cool droopy tree just a couple of blocks north of Main Street. I parked myself on my back under the tree with a very wide angle lens to get the shot.

The way the tendrils of the tree drooped toward the ground was very eye catching from afar, but the best angle to capture then was directly underneath them.

Mandan’s historic downtown buildings have some interesting features, many of which are better viewed up close.

Something a little more modern, this six-pack of windows formed a nice geometric progression.

Next year we’ll do it again, I’m sure. Last year’s walk was in July, we’ll see what we come up with for 2012. It’s interesting to walk around your own town and try to come up with something unique that may be interesting to others around the world. We grow so accustomed to our own surroundings that forcing yourself to see it is unique and interesting is a very worthwhile exercise.

Watermark revisited

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Here’s another angle at the historic Northern Pacific bridge along our receding Missouri River. This has been one of my favorite indicators of the river’s rise and decline.

As you can see, that’s a pretty tall watermark. The river is currently at under seven feet, after a height of approximately twenty. I don’t know how much longer this watermark will remain, but for now it’s a stark reminder of how the Big Muddy behaved in 2011.

They’re back! The Northern Lights, that is

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Thanks to my network of spies, my cell phone vibrated my pillow tonight and set a great sequence of events in motion. My wife heard the phone, answered the text, woke me up, and I was on my way to catch the auroras before they faded! Naturally I headed out of town as quickly as I could after picking up my best friend.

Taking great photos of the sky ironically requires a good foreground object to put things into the proper perspective. In this case I found one of my favorite old windmills. I love these trademark North Dakota artifacts, but they do come with one caveat:

They don’t always point in the direction you’d prefer. This shot had some great aurora activity in the background, but the head of the windmill isn’t really facing in a photogenic direction. Sure, I could Photoshop it, but that’s not how I roll.

That’s more like it. I had to stumble around in the dark for a bit and try different angles around the area to see which one presented the best angle. Of course, once I moved in a certain direction, the auroras flared up in the other. I’m so accustomed to this taunting by the sky that I’ve actually developed a little bit of patience!

As auroras go, tonight’s weren’t even that dramatic. I’m told there was a lot more “spike” activity before I dragged my tired butt out into position. I don’t care, though…it’s literally been YEARS since I’ve been able to take decent Northern Lights photos due to the solar minimum. I’ve often joked that I single-handedly extinguished the auroras by buying digital cameras with the intent of photographing them! Now it seems that a frustratingly dormant period of solar inactivity is coming to a close, and I’ll be ready to capitalize on it.

Three can play at this game

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What happens when you’re having a “guys’ night out” with the fellas and our cameras? Well, of course the Proud Daddy Instinct™ kicks in, and I start taking pictures of my boys taking pictures! Well, apparently three can play at that game…

Taking pictures of Daddy taking pictures of the boys taking pictures! Whoa, we’re lucky we didn’t get caught in some sort of infinite loop there!

Of course, I did avail myself of the opportunity to get a little artsy with the windmill we were photographing. Then it was dark, past our bedtime, we were on a muddy road that required a little four wheel drive, and there was a Winnie the Pooh story waiting to be read before bed. Needless to say, mission accomplished.

A tale of two ditches, revisited

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Three months ago I visited Double Ditch to assess the impact of Missouri River flooding on the view. It was astounding; any trace of sandbars had vanished beneath a wide expanse of water. Now that access to the site is no longer prohibited, I was a little curious about what it looked like:

As you can see, we now have plenty of sandbar. In fact, there are plenty of other places along the Missouri that now have plenty of sand. Welcome to the new normal!

One other thing that’s noteworthy, and hard to discern from these photos because they’re framed so differently, is how much farther south the sun sets in mid-September compared to June. On the longest day of the year, just four days after the top photo was taken, the sun sets much farther north. As winter creeps closer and the days grow shorter, however, the sun’s track moves southward and peaks lower in the southern sky during midday. It may be interesting to return to Double Ditch on the shortest day of the year and see where it intersects the horizon; if I do so, you’ll see it here.